


Be My Guiding Light

by JustAPassingGlance



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 15:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11763057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAPassingGlance/pseuds/JustAPassingGlance
Summary: Blaine had woken up in a concrete room measuring 5 paces by 3 paces across. Food was provided twice a day (assuming it was remembered), through a steel flap in a steel door. There was no chance of escape and the only thing maintaining his sanity was Sebastian Smythe.





	Be My Guiding Light

**Author's Note:**

> If we're being honest, I'm just using this year's Seblaine Week to clean out my WIP folder.

The room was 5 paces by 3 paces. Or 9 tiptoes by 5. 2.5 lunges by 1-and-an-overextension. There were other variations too, but they never stuck. Over and over Blaine re-did them. Pacing, lunges, jumps, crab crawl. Sometimes 5 paces became 6 and he’d have to start measuring all over again. 

The floor was made of a bumpy concrete and it sloped down to one side, leading to a drain in the floor. The walls were also made of rough concrete. On the “west” and “south” walls there were steel doors.  There was no way to know for sure which direction was which and it was as likely as not that he was entirely wrong about it but he always pictured the sun rising to the left of where he slept and so had assigned that the “east”.

The door on the east wall was only about 3 feet tall and was unlocked, for ten minutes at a time, from the other side twice a day. That door lead to the bathroom which contained two buckets. One of the buckets was filled with stale, dirty water to wash in. Washing involved using a harsh soap that burned if it was left on the skin for too long and bare hands. The other served as a toilet.

Neither of them were emptied with regularity and the smell of the tiny room was eye-watering and made him surprisingly grateful for the heavy door that separated the two rooms.

The door on the south wall was always locked but had a metal flap at the very bottom that was just wide enough for a food tray.  The flap pushed in and could be bolted into place, although it wasn’t always. When the meal was finished, the flap could be pulled back in a painful process that involved wedging fingers at exactly the right angle to lift the flap up and the trays and bowls were pushed out to wherever it was they came from.

They tray had to be returned or else the next meal would not be forthcoming.

Twice a day food was pushed through. Almost every meal was the same beige-colored lentil mush, occasionally accompanied by either under- or over-ripened fruit. He had no concept of whether they were provided in equal intervals. Some days felt like meals were too close together and other days ages apart. 

Blaine continued to measure things in days but time, real actual time that could be measured in seconds and minutes and hours, had lost all meaning. Instead, he counted his days in food cycles. One cycle, two cycle. New day. Stretching irregularly before him.

He should have kept a calendar, like they did in all those prison movies. Scratched out tallies on the wall that counted out the days of incarceration. Counting down until the day of freedom. In the films, one day spent locked away was one day closer to freedom.

But then what did he know. There was no end date on his imprisonment. No 6 years’ time, cut down to 3 with good behavior. His term had no defined length. Freedom could come the next day or the next week. Or, although he tried not to dwell on this particular thought, never.  

“This blows,” Sebastian sighed. He was on his back on the floor, his legs straight up against the wall. He made a motion like he was throwing a ball up in the air. Catch, release. Catch release. Catch release. Over and over and over and over.

Except there was no ball to be thrown. There wasn’t anything. Just them, a heap of ratty blankets, two mostly-flat pillows, the drain, and cold space between everything.

Catch and release. Catch and-

“Would you stop that?” Blaine snapped. “You’re driving me crazy.” He turned his back on Sebastian, staring intently at the door. He counted out the scratches on it. 22 on the left, all below where the handle should be. Another thing not to think about—what, or who, had made those markings before them.

 “The last time I was this bored,” Sebastian continued with his invisible game of catch as he spoke, “I-”

“We’ve had this conversation at least a dozen times. It either ends in you getting a blowjob or almost getting expelled and I’m sorry, Sebastian, but today I’m just not in the mood for it.”

“Jeez, Anderson, someone’s feeling testy today.”

“If that’s a joke about my-”

Sebastian was suddenly standing in front of him. His face was contorted in apology, a look that Blaine would have considered unfamiliar before all of this had started. Even still, he sometimes thought, it maybe sat a little wrong on Sebastian’s face. Twisted his mouth in an unnatural way. Sebastian wasn’t meant to be apologetic. It was one of the things that Blaine had valued most in him, how unapologetically he lived his life.

“It wasn’t,” Sebastian assured, voice low and soothing and hand held out placatingly, like he was talking to a skittish animal. “Although if you wanted to hear one…” His mouth tried to stay serious but the left corner twitched up into a half-grin.

“I don’t.” Blaine tried for a tired smile, feeling back on more even-footing now that Sebastian was back to his insinuations. “But thank you.”

Sebastian gave him a long, measured look before shrugging and returning to his preferred spot on the floor. With Sebastian no longer an immediate distraction, Blaine let himself be pulled back into the depths of his own mulling worry.

Worrying was both a vicious cycle and a comforting pastime. Having no control over his day-to-day life anymore, all the little concerns, like whether he was wearing the right outfit (he wasn’t. for anything), whether his hair was out of place (he shuddered to even think of the state of it. He hadn’t gelled, had a haircut, or shaved in weeks), or whether he was going to be late (late, at that point was an understatement for all of the obligations he had been forced to miss). Even worrying about his own health and safety seemed futile, although it flickered across his mind from time to time. But there were still family and friends to anguish over, and the kids he had been drama coaching.

“Think fast,” Sebastian said following too many moments of quiet. Quick as a flash, he launched his invisible ball at Blaine’s head. Fast enough that, had it been real, Blaine would have a black eye because wasn’t able to duck out of the way fast enough.

“Jerk,” he muttered good naturedly as Sebastian reached out as if to scoop up the ball as it rolled back to him.

Sebastian grinned sarcastically and said, “Once a jerk, always a jerk. Eh, Anderson?”

“As soon as we’re out of here, I’m calling whoever makes people saints. I should be celebrated for putting up with you.”

“I’m ignoring your sass because I know you’re glad I’m here.”

Blaine hummed noncommittally but found himself smiling as Sebastian returned to his game.

* * *

When Blaine had first woken up, it had been from an obviously drugged sleep. He had been covered in bruises and had no idea where he was. His last clear memory had been leaving his apartment to go to the grocery store.

He had no idea who was holding him, or why.

He saw his captors rarely and they seldom talked to him. From what he could tell there were three of them. The few times he saw them he did his best to memorize their features, which was difficult because their coming was always heralded by some sort of drug slipped into the food so that he was at best disoriented and at worst unconscious when they appeared.

Initially being kidnapped to be sold into some sort of trade seemed like the most likely option but after weeks had passed and there was no attempt to move them, this seemed like an increasingly distant possibility, unless a deal had gone wrong somewhere.

Ransom, he supposed, was another possibility. They were stripped of all their personal possessions, including wallet, cell phone, and identification. It would be easy enough to get information about family for extortion.

Beyond that, all they could do was guess, in hushed undertones while hoping that the increasingly ludicrous theories regarding their identity wouldn’t be overheard and cause offense.

As Sebastian pointed out, it didn’t matter that from a day-to-day, practical stand point. Knowing or not knowing wouldn’t suddenly make him free or even guarantee that freedom, or at least a change of venue, would definitely be coming in the near future. Escape, they had determined after a 3-day search of every inch of the room, was impossible and the drugging made any form of attack unlikely. So all hope had to rest in the outside world.

* * *

“Just once,” Blaine said, spooning up his breakfast and letting it slop down back into the bowl, which was more of mucusy-yellow than normal. And it tasted a little like bananas. Or pears. Blaine found it disconcerting that he couldn’t tell which one but not disconcerting enough to not eat. “Just once, I want real food. Or even a semblance of real food.”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath.” Sebastian was sneering down at the bowl.  

“My jaw actually hurts from not chewing. Did you know that was even possible?”

“I did, actually. A man needs more in his life than just swallowing. Sometimes you have to eat ou—”

“Sebastian!”

Sebastian grinned, wide and Cheshire like, too pleased with himself for too little an accomplishment.

“Do you think that, just for today, we can sit in silence for a while?”

“You were the one who started it,” Sebastian pointed out in an infuriatingly reasonable and child-like way.

A dull throbbing started in Blaine’s left temple.

It was another lights on day. The light might be left on for days at a time or kept off for just as long. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes someone remembered to hit the switch or sometimes they didn’t. The light had been on for almost 3 days and there was nowhere but under the ratty blanket to hide from the harsh bulb.

Over the next 15 to 20 minutes, his headache would change from dull to pounding. He was dehydrated, malnourished, and tired. And in that particular moment, on that particular day he didn’t have it in him to deal with the reality of his situation.

“Please?” He begged.

Sebastian offered a careless shrug and a smirking smile. “Doesn’t bother me.”

With a sigh, Blaine laid his head down on his sorry excuse for a pillow and, closing his eyes, let himself be alone for once.

* * *

To pass the time, they played a lot of games. Some were real games, like Twenty Questions and Never Have I Ever. A lot were made up on the spot, like Tigers and Lilies and Spider Races, which involved betting on how long it would take a spider to crawl from one side of the cell to another. 

About twice a week, they played a game called “Guess the Weather Today” which wasn’t really a game but more a way to remember that there was a world outside of their concrete walls. Sometimes “Guess the Weather Today” became “Guess What My Parents Are Doing Today” or “Guess What I Would Be Doing Today If I Weren’t Here” and once it took that turn they stopped playing games for the rest of the day and stared morosely at the door or the ceiling and tried their hardest not to remember there was a world outside their concrete walls.

They playacted movies and shows. They sang every song they knew and the ones they knew well, they tried to sing backwards. When they ran out of songs or forgot the lyrics, they would make them up themselves. Bonus points were given for the most ridiculous changes, especially when the still fit in with the tune or if they didn’t immediately recognize the changes the other had made.

Whoever was on the other side of the door only seemed to care when things got too loud. Belting out songs was definitely verboten and laughter was punishable.

Punishments varied and, at first, it had seemed worth it for the fleeting moments of freedom a long-held note could bring, until the punishments took a violent turn and Blaine was left nursing what he was sure were bruised rips and a dislocated shoulder that caused him to pass out twice before it could be reset.

After that, they kept their singing to a minimum and their speaking never went louder than a whisper.

* * *

“There was one day,” Blaine said slowly, smile unfurling across his face, “I think I was 6 or 7 because it was before Coop left for college. We drove all the way to a beach, I don’t remember where it was. It must have been somewhere along Lake Erie, I think.”

Sebastian snorted but kept quiet, presumably biting his tongue against the idea of a life so bland that a trip to Lake Erie was something worth remembering.

Blaine had already sat through a stream of his increasingly wild stories about his youth. Almost every story had taken place in some exotic and exciting new location. Sebastian couldn’t have just had a day out with his family, it had to a be a picnic with someone who was distant royalty and there had to be some sort of hijinks that lead to an almost-scandal or the police being called. All of them had been part truths cloaked with exaggerations and out-right lies. But the fun had always been in how Sebastian told stories, not what their content actually was.

Studiously, Blaine ignored him and continued. “We got up really early; we left before our parents were even up. Coop had just gotten his driver’s license and Mom said he could only have his own car if he drove me places. So we drove hours up to this beach and when we got there it was still pretty chilly but we were so excited that we were the first ones there and we got to pick out the perfect spot to set up our towels.

“By mid-morning the beach was packed and it was just starting to get hot. Coop and I were in the water and it was so much fun because it was just the two of us.”

“None of his friends around, you mean?” Sebastian said. He wasn’t the only one to have shared his past and by that point he heard extensively about all the times Blaine had trailed behind or been abandoned by his older brother. It was never anything he could relate to, having always longed to escape the mercy of his two older sisters who had spent his younger years treating him more like a toy than a brother, but he had gotten better at offering what-could-pass-for-sympathy.

“Yeah,” Blaine admitted, blushing and ducking his head, “but none of my friends either. Or are family. Just brothers being brothers, you know?”

“Sure,” Sebastian replied with only the faintest hint of sarcasm.

“Anyway,” Blaine hurried to continue, “we spent most of the morning in the water but suddenly these clouds just rolled in. Just really huge, black clouds and within 5 minutes it was pouring rain. Everyone ran off the beach to this little concession hut, scrambling to grab their things, thinking it was just a summer storm that would blow over in a few minutes. But it kept raining and raining.

“So everyone started leaving. But Coop didn’t want to because it was such a long drive there and back. I remember that he just looked at me and he said ‘What’s a little rain?’ before picking me up and running back to the beach. And we just stayed there. All day. On the beach, in the rain.”

“That sounds like a good day.”

Blaine closed his eyes to hold the memory for as long as he could. “It was,” he whispered, still smiling. “It’s one of my happiest memories.”

* * *

The lights had been off for almost two days but that didn’t mean Blaine couldn’t hear Sebastian at his stupid game. Catch and release. Catch. And release. The steady pattern tattooing itself into Blaine’s brain.

There might as well have been an actual ball in with them for all the noise that it was making.

 _Thump_. _Woosh_. _Thump_. _Woosh_. _Thu-_

"You weren't my first choice, you know." Blaine glared at the ceiling, as annoyed with himself as he was with Sebastian. He hated the way the darkness made him feel, even more than he hated it when the light was left on for days. It became hard for him to remember who he was, to remember where his body ended the room began. Sure, he could feel where his fingers touched the floor and his toes pushed against the wall but it all became less real when he couldn’t see it.

There was only the infuriating itch of his body hair, (which had been trimmed once since his arrival, undoubtedly a response to his initial complaints. The job hadn’t been done with any skill of delicacy and he had emerged, groggily from his drugged sleep, to find himself shorn and cut and spent the next four days trembling and crying.), and Sebastian to help him remember that he was more than the darkness that surrounded him.

"Blaine Anderson, how you wound me," Sebastian said.  

"You would never say that."

"Touché."

Blaine could just see the accompanying wink. Not just with Sebastian’s eye but with the corner of his mouth too; overly exaggerated and sarcastic, a caricature of itself, like so much of what Sebastian did.

"You wouldn't say that either."

If he closed his eyes tight enough, flashes of light would dart across his eyelids. Sometimes he would try and create pictures with them. Sometimes he pretended they were shooting stars, although he was long past making wishes on them.

"Well,” Sebastian sighed in fond exasperation, “what would I say then?"

"The fact that I don't know is most of our problem."

"Your problem, you mean."

"As long as you’re here it can be both of our problems."

"You just said you didn't even want me here."

"I said you weren't my first choice."

"Is there a difference?"

"You weren't my first choice but you were my best choice."

"You do know how to flatter a boy.”

“I think you’re a man now.”

“I’ll be whoever you want me to be.” There was a pause for another wink. Or maybe a salacious grin. “So have I fulfilled my purpose?”

"You have. You remind me of who I really am. Make sure I stay me."

The darkness weighed heavily on Blaine’s chest and threatened to collapse down on top of him.  He wondered if it were possible to suffocate on it. Or would it fill up his lungs causing him to drown?

"Because I know the real Blaine, Blaine?”

"You've always said you do."

"It's always been true. And I only said it once."

Blaine flipped over onto his stomach. “It was much quieter in here before you arrived.”

“You were the one who invited me, if invite is the right word. You wanted me to keep the quiet away.”

Blaine snorted. “How desperate I must have been.”

He had been desperate. Almost three days and nothing but the ringing silence of the cell. Before they started feeding him, so there wasn’t even the happy interruption of his tray scraping across the ground. He hadn’t known how much longer he would be there, left completely alone.

He found his mind wandering and he’d been afraid of letting it get too far and he was afraid of it reaching a point where his mouth and voice forgot their purpose. Or where he forgot himself, or worse yet, the outside world.

So he had started talking. First just to himself, feeding himself empty platitudes and reassurances until those had run out and then just saying whatever had come across his mind, until he felt like he was actually going crazy. Then he started talk to others; he closed his eyes and imagined his mother there then his father. Imagined the advice or encouragement that they could offer.

But he couldn’t bring himself to keep talking to them for long, not when he knew that his real parents were somewhere out there, probably frantic with worry over him, maybe even talking to each other again. (Or maybe not. How long had it been? Maybe not long enough for that. Talking through Cooper, more like. Already more conversation than they had had in the last 3 years.) He felt guilty drawing comfort from them when he had nothing to offer in return.

So he had cycled through more of his friends and family but they all looked at him with the same mixture of pity and concern. Or he couldn’t imagine them talking to him about anything other than his current situation, how worried they were about him, and how brave he was. How they were looking. Offering empty promises that he would be rescued soon.  

And then Sebastian Smythe had wriggled his way to the forefront, emerging from somewhere in the depths of his memory, where the years had long since relegated him.

But Blaine had closed his eyes and suddenly there Sebastian was, looking around the cell and declaring that it was “depressing as shit.” His voice had been clear in Blaine’s head and without a single ounce of pity, only disgust at the conditions it had found itself in.

“Desperate times. Desperate measures.” Sebastian was shrugging and kicking at Blaine’s blanket and Blaine could see it all, despite the complete darkness, since he was nothing more than a figment of Blaine’s imagination.

* * *

Sometimes Blaine thought he might be doing a disservice to Sebastian. Surely if he knew of Blaine’s situation, he would be just as worried as Blaine’s other friends and family were. He wouldn’t actually be as callous about the situation as Blaine was projecting him to be.

Blaine thought Sebastian had cared about him once upon a time, all those years ago. Their late-night conversations about nothing and midday texts about their classes had to be a sign that he was more than just a potential conquest. Even at 17, Sebastian could have had any other guy he wanted and if there wasn’t something more than lust between them he wouldn’t have wasted all that time when there was so slim a chance of receiving a reward.

And he couldn’t say how the years had changed Sebastian, whether he’d given into his harsher tendencies or grown out of them into something more of the person that Blaine had seen in him and thought he could become.

It had been more than five years since they had fallen out of contact and Blaine probably was little more than a footnote in Sebastian’s history. That boy he had once known. Thought about occasionally and mostly while reminiscing about something else.

Of course, he would probably also be delighted that it had been him that Blaine had turned to in his darkest hour of need and he'd find at least one opportunity to slip in an innuendo about how he hoped Blaine was using the memory of him for comfort. Possibly accompanied by a wink. Possibly accompanied by a lewd hand gesture. 

Given the circumstances, masturbation was the furthest thing from his mind. But he had thought about thinking about it as a concession to Sebastian and an apology for using him in his own twisted self-therapy and decided that, at the end of the day, Sebastian would be proud. 

* * *

There was banging coming from upstairs along with a cacophony of shouting: shouts of anger, shouts of fear, shouts of warning. Blaine thought maybe he heard gunfire but it sounded too distant and muffled to be sure.

He rolled under his bedding and covered his ears with a pillow.

“What’s happening?” He whispered to Sebastian.

“I think this is it,” Sebastian whispered back. He was crouched protectively in front of Blaine, having planted himself directly between him and the door. “You’re being rescued.” He didn’t sound any surer than Blaine felt as he shuffled an inch closer to the door.

“Everyone’s probably forgotten about me, I’ve been here for so long.”

“Not me,” Sebastian said, “I haven’t forgotten you.”

Blaine scrunched his eyes against another volley of noise. “I’m not sure you count.”

“Your parents haven’t forgotten either. Or your friends. They wouldn’t have stopped looking for you. No one could forget you, Blaine Anderson.”

“You’re being too nice.” His hand had started to inch out from the blankets, searching for Sebastian’s until he remembered that there was nothing, no one, for him to grab onto.

“Go to sleep,” Not-Sebastian whispered and Blaine swore he could feel him pressing a calming hand against the back of his neck, right at that pressure point he had always been told could render a man unconscious. “This nightmare will be over when you wake.”


End file.
